


No Longer Tamaranean, Not Quite An Earthling: Essays About Starfire

by MariGrayson



Category: New Teen Titans, Nightwing (Comics), Starfire (Comics), Teen Titans (Comics)
Genre: Character Study, Essays, Gen, comic book essays, starfire character study, starifre-focused
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-12
Updated: 2021-02-12
Packaged: 2021-03-18 09:34:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29366370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MariGrayson/pseuds/MariGrayson
Summary: A collection of essays focused on Starfire's character history, trajectory, and her relationships.
Kudos: 2





	1. Starfire & Born Sexy Yesterday

So what is _born sexy yesterday?_ This trope was introduced to the internet by essayist Pop Culture Detective as a lens through which to analyze adult women in science fiction media who are typically extremely attractive but are oblivious to both their sex appeal and to the ways of the world. This naivete is either intrinsic to their personality or a result of these characters _literally_ being born yesterday (an example of this would be the _Fifth Element's_ Leeloo). To keep it short, born sexy yesterday means a character with specialized intelligence but with the experience, mind, and personality of a child in the body of (most often) a grown woman who is usually highly sexualized and objectified. It's a trope that crops up in science fiction with an alarming frequency. Almost always, there is a man (typically ordinary in every way except for the fact that our Born Sexy Yesterday character falls for him) that guides the Born Sexy Yesterday through the ways of a world that are completely new to her. Seeming to possess an abundance of knowledge and intelligence, the Born Sexy Yesterday finds him irresistable and falls in love with him.

At a glance, Starfire's character seems to fulfil some of the basic characteristics of this trope. As a literal alien to Earth, Koriand'r meets a handful of these requirements:

Innocent of the ways of our world?

yes.

A scene where she's innocently naked in front of others and requires an explanation of why western culture finds nudity wrong and/or inappropriate?

That's there, too.

 _However,_ for all this innocence surrounding Earth culture, Koriand'r is rarely seen acting like with the innocence of a child and displays deep knowledge of a variety of subjects that are both intellectual and physical. Her innocence and naivete in social situations on Earth comes not from having the mind of a child but from a cultural dissonance. Despite suffering for years in enslavement and having no formal education (or what we as an audience would define as a formal education) she intuitively understands how to operate a starship and makes a flawless escape from her captors in a ship we as an audience may assume she has never flown before as she was a mere child when she was enslaved:

This is a skill that seems to come naturally to her and belies a greater understanding of technology than her Earth counterparts could boast of.

It's not just her technical knowledge that interests me, however, but her analytical skills as well. In _New Teen Titans_ #33, during her search for answers about Dick's current whereabouts, she solves the team's problem regarding their villain of the week:

She listens to the team's descriptions of their individual conflicts with the villain Trident (previously thought to have been dead) and comes to the correct conclusion that there are multiple people masquerading as him. The scene is cut short by Tara insulting Kory's intelligence as she has interpreted Kory's beauty as being her only defining trait. Much like many comics fans, Tara has mistaken Kory's general kindness and cultural naivete for a lack of intelligence that Kory herself has never displayed. In the following scene, Kory's emotional competence is used to smooth over the situation and make clear that she won't tolerate being insulted:

While Kory is not formally educated, she is analytically minded, extremely emotionally competent, and maintains a set of skills that the other Titans had to cultivate later in life as her culture and the other cultures she grew up exposed to are more technologically advanced than Earth.

While she did fall in love with the first man she met on Earth, she didn't idolize him or love him because she thought he was the most intelligent man she had met. Kory repeatedly stands up to Dick both for herself and for what she believes he himself needs. When he lashes out at her, she tempers both his and her emotions to ensure the outcome best for both of them and when he talks down to her she refuses to let it go unnoticed:

There are countless examples of the ways in which her character has been proved to be someone who doesn't require hand holding and is equally as smart and capable (if not more) than her teammates. Her character is one that is established to have a strong sense of her own needs, wants, and personal character regardless of the situation.

In addition to her subversion of the emotional and intellectual facets of this trope, Kory also has a variety of relationships outside of her romantic relationship. Unlike the traditional Born Sexy Yesterday, Kory isn't limited to having only one relationship and her scope of the world isn't limited to just Dick Grayson and their romantic relationship - her friendships with Garfield Logan, Victor Stone, and Joey Wilson are as deep and meaningful as her relationship with Dick (this is referring to how Born Sexies are often only allowed to have a relationship/friendship with the male hero of their story and no other men, this is not discounting her deep friendships with both Donna Troy, Raven, and Lilith):

While Kory isn't a perfect subversion of this trope, she is the subversion of it that stands the test of time as a character who is both deep feeling and deeply intelligent which offsets any naivete she may have in regards to Earth and the wide and varied cultures that exist on our planet. I believe that her character represents how this trope can be subverted and how it can be eliminated from the science fiction media landscape as creators work toward creating media that is inclusive of women with actual wants, desires, and personalities.


	2. Batman & Starfire's Relationship

Batman and Starfire’s relationship is the subject of more than one debate across the internet and in comic shops alike, as people wonder if they like each other, assume they hate each other, but mostly don’t know if they’ve ever even _met._

Bruce and Kory met for the first time in _Batman and the Outsiders #5_ in 1983 _-_ this issue is a crossover between _Outsiders_ and _The New Teen Titans_ and immediately, Bruce begins to take over directing the Teen Titans team, leaving Dick to stew by himself as he watches his team be misdirected. In this, Kory makes the observation that Bruce doesn’t exactly treat Dick well:

This isn’t exactly a scathing remark or a comprehensive list of all of his flaws - which is important, as many debating this topic tend to say Kory is constantly insulting Bruce with a variety of insults, which is part of the fundamental misunderstanding of both Kory as a character and the nature of their almost non-existent relationship. What is important about this is that Kory recognizes Bruce’s flaws, but still respects him enough to have him direct her in this issue of _Batman and the Outsiders._

Batman and Starfire are in proximity to one another during various events but they never really interact for a while after this, however, in 1986 in _Swamp Thing #53,_ Bruce defends Swamp Thing’s relationship with his wife Abby by citing a multitude of relationships between aliens and humans - this includes Dick and Kory: 

This set the precedent for Bruce and Kory’s relationship; while it is incredibly thin and not well-developed because of the nature of the Titans and Batman properties in the 80s, it is still a precedent. They don’t necessarily dislike each other but they certainly aren’t against one another - in fact, they were even featured on a mission together in _Cosmic Odyssey (1988)._

This dynamic changes in the early 2000s, which is what confuses most readers. In _Gotham Knights #43,_ Scott Beatty made it clear that Bruce is no longer a neutral viewer of Dick’s life (and his romantic life, specifically) as he tells Barbara Gordon that “the thing with the alien won’t last” - referring to Kory and Dick’s relationship because, apparently, Bruce has always wanted Barbara, a woman ten years Dick’s senior, to get together with him:

In this panel, he shows the xenophobia of the 90s and 2000s Batman that wasn’t quite present in 80s Batman. Bruce as an active figure in the shadows of Dick’s life, pulling strings to ensure that Babs and Dick would get together or at least have faith that they would get together one day is not only out of character for him but out of character for the history that Dick and Bruce shared during the 80s, where Bruce took a step back from Dick’s life. 

This retcon damages not only the modern interpretation of Bruce, but the reader’s interpretation of Kory - despite there being an, albeit shallow, history of there being respect between the two of them, this retcon ensures that the reader will interpret Bruce as a xenophobe and Kory as not being good enough for Dick (when, really, it’s the other way around !). It allows both xenophobia and misogyny to seep into Kory’s narrative and the audience interpretation of her, because they won’t question the word of Batman as it’s handed down by writers. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I enjoyed writing this entry particularly. I like exploring Kory's relationship with Batfamily characters because there's always so much more to these connections than meets the eye.


End file.
